The Tragedy of Macbeth and the witches

It is a play written by Shakespeare. It's about the story of Macbeth who is one of the general of Scottish King Duncan encountering three witches prophesying that Macbeth will be the king of Scotland. He learned witches' prophesy when he came back from to the kingdom after defeating two invading armies of enemies. Afterwards, he changed in a bad way with the result of what witches had said and started to take lives of people who didn't deserve to die in order to be the king.

Macbeth's life changed after the three witches prophesy but this change was destructive instead of being constructive. Therefore, his wife, Lady Macbeth was also be a part of this destructive changing. She and her husband planned an assassination together for the death of the current king, Duncan, and she encouraged her husband to be the king of Scotland. However, when Duncan's death was discovered next morning, the son of Duncan wished to kill the man who murdered his father on contrary to Macbeth's ideas; to make him the king.To sum up, Macbeth did something he might regret later with the effect of some evil ideas by ignoring and abusing his free will.

References: http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/macbeth/18.html
http://theinconsequentialepistlesofjohn.blogspot.com/2012/07/is-this-dagger-which-i-see-before-me.html
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/macbeth.4.1.html

Love agains two families' hostility: Romeo & Juliet

Romeo & Juliet is the most famous tragedy in English literature. Love between Romeo and Juliet despite the hostility of their families, Montague and Capulet, is the most important and dominant thing in this tragedy. Which makes this so famous is their passion to love even if they know that this love wouldn't be come true due to their families being enemies to each other's. Because of this fact, Juliet says these utterances in the balcony scene being unaware that Romeo is there:

"O Romeo, Romeo,
wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I'll no longer be a Capulet." (My favorite quotation from Romeo & Juliet)

She is actually talking to herself (her inner voice) and judging why Romeo must be the same Romeo who is the son of Montague,  the biggest  enemy of Juliet's family. She wants to live in a different world with different names without being enemies, so that, the hinder in front of their love could disappear. She says that if Romeo wouldn't called "Romeo" or "Montague" and if Juliet wouldn't called "Juliet" or "Capulet" as well, Romeo would still be the same man she had fallen in love indicating that the name is just a cover for people not the real thing in characteristics.

In conclusion, this hostility hinders them from marriage and causes their death. Even if they had a chance to live, they chose to die together instead of living separately!

References: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PjW88nbZQI

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's life is also interesting just like himself. From my perspective, the most important thing about his life is that the date of birth and death of him was the same: April 23. And the second most important thing is his marriage. He married when he was eighteen with a woman eight years older than him. Why a young man marry with an older person? It will always occupy my mind as a question mark. Another interesting thing about Shakespeare is that he is the most quoted and most translated of any author on the world which makes him unique and fascinating.

Before mentioning his play-writes, I would to share my favorite quotes from Shakespeare:
"We know what we are, but not know what we may be."
"A fool thinks himself as a wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."
"If music be the food of love, play on."
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."
"God has given you one face, and you make yourself another."
"There is nothing good either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

In addition to all that, he wrote so many masterpieces on more than one area. You can see what I meant clearer with the help of this table:

References:  http://shakespeare.mit.edu/
 http://www.shakespeare-online.com/
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/

Renaissance in Literature

According to me, the most important fact of the Renaissance Period in literature is the invention of the first printing press by William Caxton. Because people had a chance to get a copy of Bible easier and they had been getting clear understanding of religious facts with the help of the printing press. Moreover, the degree of literacy grew and much more people could read & write. In addition to this, the invention made reaching books cheaper and people had an opportunity to learn more despite the pressure of the church.

The second biggest influence was the dis-aggression on marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII would like to divorce with Catherine (his ex-wife before Anne Boleyn) because they couldn't have a baby boy but the church didn't approve this divorce. With the hope of finding a solution, Henry VII changed the whole country from Catholic to Protestant, so that, he could marry with Anne Boleyn. However, this helped the public understanding that the rules of the church may have an exception and may have abolished.

With the effect of all these events, humanity occurred in the Renaissance Period. It means that the idea putting human-being in the center of the world and rejecting all the rest. So that, people started live independent  from the pressure of church.

Reference (the presentation of our teacher): http://prezi.com/gti63lkfcbpf/the-renaissance-in-english-literature/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

The Tragical Life of Dr. Faustus

Doctor Faustus is a play written by Christopher Marlowe including themes, motifs and symbols of Christianity. And, general concern of the play is trying to understanding the world. Actually, it's like a bridge between the Medieval and the Renaissance facts and values.

Dr. Faustus is the protagonist and the tragic hero of Marlowe's play. He is an arrogant man but his ambition is worth to see. Therefore, he wants to reshape of the map of Europe both physically and politically, and gain access to every knowledge about the universe. In addition to this, he would like to be the man in the center of the world by wanting these wishes and rejecting God-centered universe. All makes this play very interesting and makes me push learn more about it!

Reference for the photograph I have used: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chiaralily/galleries/72157626482344829/

A Frame Story: "Canterbury Tales"

 'What man artow?' quod he;
'Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare,
For ever upon the ground I see thee stare.
Approchë neer, and loke up merily....
He semeth elvish by his contenaunce.'
             
   (The Host's description of Chaucer, Prologue, Sir Thopas)

I found it randomly while surfing on the internet for Canterbury Tales and really liked it because there was given an old but impressive description of Geoffrey Chaucer by someone else and I thought that it would be pretty nice when I mention it on my blog. 

(here is the link in which I found it:  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10609/10609-h/10609-h.htm)


"Canterbury Tales" is a little bit different from other poems and stories that we covered before because it is a story within stories. By the way, this kind of stories called as 'a frame story', I have just learned it although I had some background information about the story.  In the story, there were pilgrims on their way to Canterbury to visit the tomb of St. Thomas Becket. They decide to start a contest requiring each pilgrim to tell two different stories during their trip. And, the one whose story chosen the best would be the winner of the contest and gain a free meal as a reward. This is the way how it was made.

There are many different narrators telling stories in the original story and each of them have a different character indeed. By analysing their characters we can see the same fact from various perspectives: Some of them are very keen on money, some keen on  desire, some keen on money, some keen on church and etc.

URLs for the previous pictures I have used: 

http://www.pagepulp.com/2121/many-covers-of-the-canterbury-tales/

https://www.uni-due.de/SHE/SHE_ME_Writings.htm

Beowulf Commentary

Actually I was familiar with the context of Beowulf because I had taken English Literature subject once before. Though I have realized that I did not pay attention as much as necessary at the last time when I heard the poem first. But this time I learned more about it on the ground that I had been in Denmark at this time last year which is the place the story takes place on Hrothgar's side -the king of the Danes-. While listening to my teacher, I felt like I came back to Denmark and witnessed the legend when it occurred.

On this post, I would like to make some comments about the inconspicuous parts of the epic story. In epic stories, the striking character is always a hero and there is nobody stronger than him and nothing more significant than the things he made. So, Beowulf is the hero in this epic. From beginning to the end of the poem, Beowulf joined three important battles. The first one was against Grendel -the monster harming inhabitants because they were having too much fun bu lavishing and wasting too much food & money in their great hall with a heavy extravagance-,  the second one was against Grendel's mother -suffering from her son's murder by Beowulf and seeking vengeance for this-, the third and the last one was against the dragon -revenging ravages because his treasure was stolen during his sleep-.

Nobody sees the story from the antagonists' perspective. Not only Beowulf but also they have excuses to fight with his/their enemy/enemies!

URL for the previous picture I have used :  http://sorcerersskull.blogspot.com/2012/09/beowulf-will-blow-your-mind.html